Sundae descriptions, meanwhile, read like a series of shopping lists written by Ben and Jerry on an all-night weed bender. Various menus (one for affogatos, another for sundaes and ice cream, one more for “crunches”) are scattered throughout the shop but not collected in one central location, and can become outdated as the kitchen runs out of ingredients and improvises with fanciful new flavors and mix-ins. This Wonka-esque approach to flavor-scheming at times bewilders. The other day, she churned a batch of what she called raspberry Twizzler (raspberry ice cream mingled with the twisty concession-stand stalwart that had been chopped up and cooked down with cream and sugar into a stupendous Twizzler fudge). On occasion, she flouts the unofficial house rule against using commercial candy as mix-ins. And she folds chocolate ganache and crumbled Martin’s pretzels from Union Square Greenmarket into her chocolate-mint-fudge-pretzel (greatest). She pumps up her raspberry swirl with marshmallows and cuts the sweetness with lime (greater). She texturizes her pumpkin-maple ice cream with roasted pecans and pecan brittle (great). Regular Underground Gourmet visits suggest that the world contains very few things Meyer can’t or won’t crunchify into brittle, thin into drizzles, or transform into fudge or taffy. The shop’s namesake panna, for instance, is whipped from the cream of Piemontese cows. Instead of the M&M’s or Heath bars of yore, she makes her own chocolate ganache and graham brittle and cannoli crunch, and what she doesn’t make (Sicilian-pistachio paste, sweet-potato buns, coconut cookies, fruit jams from West Coast chef and family friend Joyce Goldstein) she sources impeccably. “I want to add value by making really delicious flavors, making mix-ins, making the perfect salted caramel and all that,” she says.
CAFFE PANNA FREE
“I aspire to that level of balance in every flavor.”įor consistency, and to free herself from the rigors and anxieties of pasteurizing on-site, Meyer outsources her ice-cream bases to High Road Craft in Atlanta. “It’s the best ice cream in New York,” says Meyer, a Headley superfan. Where Meyer departs from the script is in her chef-y tendencies, inspired in part by Brooks Headley’s composed ice-cream desserts at Superiority Burger. Texture is a trademark: Meyer is a mix-ins maven whose approach descends spiritually from Steve Herrell, the 70s-era visionary who first folded crunchy candy into smooth ice cream.
Of the ten flavors, half change daily and the element of surprise extends to three daily-special composed sundaes including an affogato sundae that are here today, gone tomorrow (and memorialized on Instagram). The shop offers only ten flavors of ice cream each day. In a realm of established formulas, Meyer has created a place and a menu that feel new and exciting. Extra sweet, extra salty, extra rich, extra fresh, extra crunchy, but somehow just a millimeter shy of too much. If there’s a word that sums up Hallie Meyer’s ice cream at Caffè Panna, it is extra.
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